I know universities are now in serious trouble. Tuition fees don't cover costs. Unis rely on extortionate fees for international students and this is falling. But in the past, say 70s-90s, were universities much more financially sustainable and if so why?
I suspect the answer is "huh?" for many, but I'm curious how much planning has happened.
With the statutory unfair dismissal qualifying period dropping from 2 years to 6 months on 1 January 2027 (in GB), anyone on a fixed-term contract longer than six months will soon fall under ordinary unfair dismissal protection.
Given that the non-renewal/expiry of a fixed-term contract is legally a dismissal, university HR departments and PIs won't be able to let 9-to-12-month postdocs or teaching contracts quietly lapse without a fair reason, formal consultation, and evidence of redeployment efforts.
If you are a PI, how are you planning or not to deal with the extra admin?
(note - anyone you have on staff who has six month service on 1st January will be covered).
Can anyone help me to get fully funded project for uk research and innovation? Please
Dear community,
I’m in need of some advice here: how do you all organise your research and papers?
Many people have recommended Zotero, but I’m not overly happy with it and can’t seem to quite warm up to it. In the past, I’ve always organised my research using colour coding (green for the introduction, orange for Chapter 1, red for Chapter 2, etc.). This system is fantastic because it works with everything: Notability, printed material, PDFs...it doesn’t matter, as long as the colours are available.
I’m worried that using Zotero will throw off my system and add an additional layer of organisation that I then have to maintain. On the other hand, all of my peers swear by Zotero.
My supervisor is a dinosaur like me and does everything manually, so he’s camp me. I’m just worried that sticking to a manual system will eventually become unmanageable and get ahead of me as my research grows.
So: is there anyone else here who doesn’t use Zotero? What has your experience been, and what do you do instead?
UPDATE: ok, only a couple of hours in and the replies keep flooding in. I suppose there’s no way around it. Will book my library’s free training sessions. I will go through all the comments one by one but for now, I am convinced to at least give it a try. Thanks everyone!
Hi everyoneee, I’m hoping to get some perspective from people familiar with UK university admissions.
I’m currently trying to get into a Foundation year of BSc Dental Technology course at Cardiff met. I studied a Level 3 BTEC National Extended Diploma in Applied Science and my individual unit grades include Merits and Distinctions, but my final qualification is currently showing as a U because of a U in one mandatory externally assessed unit.
My tutor was shocked by my final grade but after looking through my results he explained to me why I got a U and when I asked if I should email Cardiff met about my situation, he said I should give them my unit grades and forward his details for confirmation or info.
Cardiff met has an admissions policy stating that applicants who don’t meet the standard requirements may have their circumstances and academic record considered individually. I contacted their admissions team to ask whether they can consider my situation.
I’m not expecting anyone here to predict whether I’ll be accepted, but I’m curious about how these policies actually work in practice.
Do universities genuinely use individual consideration for applicants who fall below the published requirements?
Can strong individual BTEC unit grades be taken into account when the overall qualification result is a U?
Does having relevant skills/portfolio/interview performance make a difference for a practical course like Dental Technology?
Are there examples where someone was admitted despite missing a published requirement because their circumstances were considered?
I know that the final decision will always be with the university, but I’d really appreciate hearing from anyone with experience of UK admissions or a similar situation, I’m really anxious and nervous about my circumstances:(((
Thank you!
I am from a 3rd world country and am applying for KCL and UCL. Ideally I would lile to avoid snooby nepo babies. Whch one of the unis (KCL or UCL) hs more rich kids nepo babies?
So for context I go to a pretty good Russel group university, had pretty strong a level grades and got in with a merit scholarship as an international student, I’m almost done with third year of university (1 exam away from graduating) during my first semester I had realised my degree wasn’t for me as I had started to hate it immediately and wanted to change it to law, however university declined and said you need to restart again from next year. I’m studying Accounting and Finance, I was always into studying more qualitative subjects such as Literature, psychology however my family pressure made me go into finance🤦🏽♀️🤦🏽♀️🤦🏽♀️. I did not enjoy it for a second from day 1 and in year 1 was diagnosed with a chronic kidney problem. It sucked that I had to support myself constantly working all three years of uni and on top of being constantly sick 🤦🏽♀️🤦🏽♀️🤦🏽♀️🤦🏽♀️🤦🏽♀️. I averaged 65% in my final year of university with 69.45% in my dissertation however the exams I had to defer from January to August because of being critically ill are going to bring down my average 🤦🏽♀️🤦🏽♀️ I’m so certain I will be graduating with a 2:2 especially in this horrible market I’m afraid I’ll have to leave the country as I won’t get employment or a sponsored job. I feel sick with anxiety, I feel like I have ruined my life. I absolutely hated my degree and only enjoyed a few modules like Risk, Strategy, Corporate law. Please give me some advice, genuinely feels horrid.
Hi everyone,
I’m looking for some realistic advice and perspective on the UK academic job market (specifically for Lecturer / Assistant Professor level positions in STEM / Bioengineering / Biomaterials).
Despite having solid publication and citation numbers, I am rarely making it to the shortlist/interview stage, and I'm trying to figure out where the disconnect might be.
My profile:
- Field: Biomaterials / Bioengineering
- Track record: 50+ papers, ~4,000 Google Scholar citations (predominantly first/corresponding author outputs across my career)
-Prior Academic Position (Faculty/Lecturer level): 5 years outside the UK (led independent research, secured local funding, supervised postgraduates, and delivered core lectures)
- UK experience: 3 years as a Postdoc scientist at a UK university
- Background: PhD/undergrad outside the UK (no UK degrees)
Where I could use some insight:
Any honest feedback or insights from current UK faculty/panel members would be greatly appreciated!
I Have 15 plus years of industry experience.
Wish to pursue Design Science Research in leveraging multiple disciplines to solve B2B business problems.
I have had a huge discussion with Claude & according to claude a brief description is:-
" I am designing a market, implemented as a system, running on a network, governed throughout by behavioral mechanism design."
"I am studying it through Design Science Research, iterating through Action Research cycles, and evaluating against Information Systems own success & trust criteria"
I have BAG (Psychology + Maths) Bachelor of Arts General
and a diploma in Export-Import management
If you have been able to get a fully funded PhD (or a masters + Phd program) using only a Bachelors degree, do share with me your experience.
General comments also welcomed from everyone.
thank you
This is unbelievably sad news. The relentless hounding by bad-faith actors, far beyond any academic interest, was co-opted by pure racism and identitarian politics. Regardless of the validity of the scrutiny, the unrestrained public mockery that led to this conclusion far exceeded any plagiarism controversy I've ever seen, and became the face of every cynical interest group searching for vindication, far beyond the mental and emotional any person deserves.
RIP.
I’m writing this anonymously because I’d genuinely like to hear from people who have experienced more than one academic system, rather than simply being told that I’m either romanticising foreign countries or unfairly attacking my own.
I’m an Italian humanities student, currently studying Modern Literature at the University of Bologna. I’m almost 21 and have one year left. I’ve also spent time abroad through Erasmus, and I’m seriously considering doing a Master’s abroad and potentially a PhD afterwards, possibly in Comparative Literature, Literary Studies, English Studies, or something adjacent.
The problem is that I’m increasingly unsure whether I actually want an academic career, because of the kind of environment I have experienced around academia and intellectual life in Italy.
I want to be clear that I’m not saying that every Italian academic is awful, or that every foreign university is a utopia. I know that would be ridiculous. I’m talking about a pattern I have personally perceived over several years, especially in Bologna and in some academic/intellectual environments I have encountered.
What has disturbed me most is a combination of what feels like classism, nepotism, hierarchy, personalisation of disagreement, unnecessary hostility, humiliation, status anxiety, and a strange amount of resentment. Sometimes it feels as though intellectual environments that should be based on curiosity, discussion and mutual interest instead become competitive environments where people are constantly measuring themselves against one another.
I have also experienced, on the occasions when I have made myself publicly visible through writing or social media, an amount of hostility and personalisation that I found disproportionate. I have written for newspapers and have some social-media visibility, but much of the backlash I have experienced has come from fellow Italians rather than from foreigners. That has made me wonder whether there is something cultural about the way disagreement and intellectual competition are handled here.
Again, I don’t want this to become an “Italians bad, foreigners good” post. I am Italian myself, and this is actually why it makes me sad to write this. I feel increasingly alienated from aspects of my own country’s intellectual culture: what I perceive as provincialism, populism, status-consciousness, personal conflict, and sometimes a lack of basic generosity towards younger people who are trying to learn and write.
There is also something that genuinely confuses me.
Why does intellectual culture sometimes seem to produce the opposite of what I would expect?
If someone studies literature, history, philosophy, linguistics, art, etc., I would expect them to become more curious, more sensitive to complexity, more capable of disagreement without humiliation, and perhaps more generous towards people who are still learning. Instead, I have sometimes encountered environments where people seem to become increasingly cynical, competitive, defensive and even cruel. I recently read an article in The Atlantic discussing elite academic leadership, hypocrisy and institutional culture, and it made me wonder whether what I have experienced is actually much more universal than I imagine:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/2026/09/elite-academia-leadership-hypocrisy/687969/
So I would really like to ask people who have actually experienced different systems:
How is academia in the UK and the broader Anglophone world in reality?
Is it genuinely more collegial and civil than what I am describing, or does the same behaviour simply take different forms? Is there still extensive classism, nepotism, bullying, academic “feuds”, gatekeeping and personal competition in British universities? What about the US? And what about Northern Europe — Germany, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, etc.? I have repeatedly heard that some of these systems can be more egalitarian, less hierarchical and more work-life-balance-oriented, but I don’t know how much of that is actually true once you enter academia.
I am particularly interested in hearing from people who have studied or worked in both Italy and another country, especially in the humanities.
I’m also wondering about something more existential. I love literature and writing. I would genuinely like to spend my life reading, thinking and writing. I could imagine doing a Master’s, a PhD and eventually becoming an academic. But I also want a life that is peaceful, intellectually stimulating and psychologically sustainable.
I don’t want to spend my twenties and thirties in a permanent state of competition, publication anxiety, departmental politics, precarious contracts, grant applications, networking and trying to prove that I deserve to exist in the room. At the same time, I don’t want to give up intellectual life simply because I don’t want to participate in that kind of environment.
Is there a way of having both? For example, could someone realistically build a life where they have a relatively stable academic/cultural/international job, write books or essays independently, and maintain enough financial and psychological stability to actually enjoy writing?
Or is serious intellectual production inevitably connected to some degree of suffering, precarity, competition and self-sacrifice?
I know the romantic image of the isolated writer who reads all day and produces great literature is probably nonsense. But I also don’t believe that constant misery is a prerequisite for producing good work.
In fact, one of the things I increasingly value is the idea that peace, time and psychological safety might actually make better writing possible.
I’m therefore trying to figure out whether I should pursue academia abroad, pursue a different kind of cultural/intellectual career, or perhaps find a stable job that gives me enough time and mental space to write independently.
I am not looking for “Italy sucks, move to London” answers. I’m genuinely asking people with experience:What is academic culture actually like in Italy, particularly Bologna? How does it compare with the UK? What about the US? Germany?
The Netherlands? Scandinavia?
Where have you found the healthiest academic environments?
Where have you found the worst?
Are there countries or university systems where intellectual disagreement tends to remain impersonal and constructive?
Can someone realistically have an academic career without having their entire identity and mental health consumed by it?
And if academia is not the answer, what kinds of intellectually serious careers allow you to write and think while still having a reasonably peaceful life?
I may simply have encountered some particularly bad environments, and I’m genuinely open to being told that my perception is distorted. I would much rather hear uncomfortable but nuanced answers than have people simply confirm what I already believe.
I’m almost 21, I still have one year of university left, and I’m trying to figure out whether there is actually an intellectually serious, international and humane life somewhere out there or whether I am simply romanticising the idea of leaving Italy.
Any experiences, especially from people who have lived/studied/worked in more than one country, would be enormously appreciated.
Hi everyone.
I completed my BSc four years ago, and am now looking at completing my masters. This will have to be done via distance learning as I work full time and cannot afford to drop hours. Does anybody have any experience with doing this? Particularly at University of Staffordshire, as I'm hoping to enrol there to study MSc Simulation Based Education.
I understand that this is very specific though, so my other option was just to study an MA in Education to make it more broad. On that note, if anybody has any experience of completing their postgrad in Education, has it helped you get to where you want to be? Is there any particular university you would recommend for this particular online MA?
Thanks in advance!
Hi, I’m not sure if this is the right sub, but I’ve been thinking about this for months and still can’t come to a decision. I completely understand what’s expected of both careers, and yes, I know they’re opposites of each other, but I really enjoy both. There will always be demand for doctors, but I’ve heard it’s hard to get placed. And as a Muslim woman, I’m worried about being discriminated against. On the other hand, I don’t want to get a CS degree and then end up with no job; my dad keeps telling me that if I specialize, I won’t have to worry, but I don’t know.
Also, I’ve heard that there are policies where companies have to hire women because women are underrepresented in CS, so that’s nice.
But I want a career that’s enriching and helps others, and I’m not sure if CS can do that.
Hello, I am in the final too weeks on my master's dissertation. I'm currently redrafting and editing chapters, with the introduction and conclusion left to write. Feeling the pressure.
Yesterday I started doing some lower maintenance tasks and put the front matter and contents page together. I am doing a participatory study and have 6 themes with subthemes.
Please I have suggestions on how to laye this out in the contents? I would prefer not to list all if the subthemes with numbers, it looks long but I can't find any direct guidance on this from my uni. I think they are OK with what you decide. What's the standard format? Can I leave these out of the contents and have them as light headings in the main body? Or should I include them without numbers in the contents?
Something like this:
4.1 Theme
Subtheme
Subtheme
Subtheme
Any ideas would be great, thanks!